New Microblog

I’ve started a blog over at Posterous. I like the way it’s integrated with a lot of other social stuff.

Make your way over to vaughanrsmith.posterous.com to check it out!

Athanasius contra mortem

Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot as he now is, the passers-by jeer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him. So has death been conquered and branded for what it is by the Saviour on the cross. It is bound hand and foot, all who are in Christ trample it as they pass and as witnesses to Him deride it, scoffing and saying, “O Death, where is thy victory? O Grave, where is thy sting?”

Athanasius, De Incarnatione, xxvii

This quote is particularly amazing when you consider the fact that Athanasius’ childhood was spent in the time of the great persecution under Diocletan.

Why I won’t be watching Rome (and why I really want to!)

I recently decided to watch the TV series Stargate SG-1. In the end, I didn’t really “get it”, and decided to give it a miss. Interestingly, something popped up in the first episode that surprised me. For some reason, Fox decided that the best way to get a bunch of geeks into a new TV show is to show full frontal female nudity, in an otherwise non-sexual show. Doing a bit of research, I found out that Fox had insisted upon it, against the wills of the producers and writers. They are going to be releasing a DVD cut of the show shortly with the scene removed.

But it highlights an interesting fact: television companies are willing to put outrageous nudity in a television show in order to raise the ratings for the first episode/season.

Now, along comes the HBO series Rome. I’d been tempted to watch this for some time, considering the fact that it is a British production with some brilliant actors (particularly Cioran Hinds, playing Julius Caesar). I was always put off, however, by the R18+ rating for sex scenes and violence.

I noticed that the second season of Rome has just been released on DVD, and has a lower rating without a warning for sex scenes. So, my thought processes went like this – maybe the early episodes contained some explicit stuff, just like Stargate, to get people into the series.

So, I started to watch the series. I tell you what, was I mistaken. The show is soaked in explicit sex and nudity, and just when you think it’s let up, it hits you again.

The problem is, the show doesn’t need it! The plots are fantastic, the costumes (when they are being worn!) and settings are wonderful, and the historical stuff (to my uneducated mind) seems fairly bang on. The opening scenes of the series show the 13th Legion fighting a horde of barbarians, just like they should. Shields up, glamourless, heroless. Everybody working together. Very good stuff.

But why the sex? I really don’t think that the show needs it to be successful. They are onto a good thing with the political intrigue and the scripting. That alone is enough to make me want to keep watching.

But from here on I’m not going to. I don’t need to expose myself to some of the stuff in the show, which could easily be excised. It looks like they might have for the second season, but I’m not going to persevere.

All I can say is that I hope that the Game of Thrones series (also being done by HBO) won’t be so excessive. But I doubt it.

Zondervan’s “Reader’s Greek New Testament (2nd Edition)”

I’ve been struggling through Greek now for nigh on two years. Thus, I am by no means a Greek scholar. But I love a present I received from a good friend the other day: The Reader’s Greek New Testament (2nd Edition).

It is basically the Greek text underlying the TNIV translation of the Bible, meaning that the Greek text reflects the decisions on textual variants made by the council who put together the TNIV. So, you won’t be getting the standard text you’ll find in your Greek New Testaments (ie. the UBS 4th Edition), nor will you be getting the text behind other translations (the ESV, NIV, NASB etc.).

But don’t let that distract you – this book is gold.

Basically, it’s the Greek New Testament with all the words that occur 30 times or less in the NT footnoted and defined. This means no more running off to your lexicon!

It’s important to remember that this isn’t a GNT for in-depth exegesis. It doesn’t contain serious textual apparatus, and it doesn’t give the kind of definitions you will find in a good lexicon. But it is a tool that will get you reading the text of the New Testament in it’s original language, and takes out the anti-fun legwork.

And it’s cheap. Moore Books stock it for $50.

I love this tool, and will be using it for quite some time to come.

A Reader’s Greek New Testament (2nd Edition)

Matthew Henry’s “A Method For Prayer”

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has put online their new version of the classic book A Method For Prayer by Matthew Henry. You can read it with updated ESV texts, bookmark your place, and search through the book.

Check it out here. It looks fantastic.

Dr. James White debates Abdullah Kunde – Monday, August 17th

This coming Monday, Dr. James White, founder of Alpha & Omega Ministries, will be engaging Abdullah Kunde in a debate entitled: “A Guide to Humanity: The Qur’an or the New Testament?”

The debate is going to be held at Sydney University, in the New Law Lecture Theatre 101, at 12-2pm. Also, the debate will be FREE to attend.

Please attend if you are able, it would be good to support our brother in the Lord’s work.

Heidelberg Catechism – Questions 6 & 7

Question 6
Q. Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse?
A. No, on the contrary, God created man good and in His image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might rightly know God His Creator, heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify Him.

Question 7
Q. From where, then, did man’s depraved nature come?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise, for there our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin.

Whenever something disastrous happens these days, people always want to find out at the earliest possibility who is responsible. Whether it is the kid’s parents, or the government’s lazy policies, or the downfall of society, we all need to pin our problems on someone else. We need to be vindicated.

But we’ve been talking about sin. Can we pin our sin on someone else? Well, no, because nobody’s perfect. We can’t even pin our state on God, who originally created us “in true righteousness and holiness”. We do bad things, sure, but our deeper problem is our “depraved nature”. That nature comes from our original father, Adam, and his fall from righteousness in the garden.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Romans 5:18-19

Heidelberg Catechism – Questions 4 & 5

Question 4
Q. What does God’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in a summary in Matthew 22: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

Question 5
Q. Can you keep all this perfectly?
A. No, I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbour.

I was privileged to preach this last Sunday night at Ashfield on the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6. Commenting on verse 44, I said this:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
(John 6:44)

Jesus is telling us something about us. We’re in a hopeless state. He says no one can, no one is able, no one is willing, no one even thinks of coming to Christ, believing in him, unless the Father who sent Jesus draws them.

A big question our society tries to answer is this: are people basically good, or basically bad? Are people good by nature, occasionally stuffing up (because nobody’s perfect), or are they bad by nature, only occasionally working outside their nature to do something nice? Today’s mentality is clearly that people are good, as a whole. Bad things like murder and crime are objects of people’s environments or education – not their natures. But the Bible doesn’t talk like this. The Bible doesn’t say that you and I are good. In fact, it says the exact opposite. Flick over with me to Romans chapter 3, verse 9. Paul has just given us an outline of the sinfulness of the non-Jewish people. They had ignored God, they see him, but get involved in all kinds of perversion and sin because they ignore him. But now Paul says this to his readers:

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
(Rom 3:9-18)

These are hard words. They are counter cultural words. And they are true words.

The Bible calls this state sin. A lot of the time, Christians like to talk about sins, plural, the bad things we do. The things that transgress the laws of God, that go against his will. But here, Jesus is telling us that sin is a state of being. We are all born as sinners – Psalm 51 says surely I was sinful at birth, from the time my mother conceived me. The wicked go astray at birth, speaking lies.

We are like people who have fallen out of a plane without a parachute. There is no hope of anybody being able to pull their way back up to the plane, through the air, defying gravity. The only thing that is certain for a man who falls out of a plane is a messy death on the ground – the same thing is being said of us here. In our sinful state, the only thing we can be certain of is punishment – death and hell. Jesus says – no one, not even one person, can come to Him, because of their sin.

That’s our state – like a man falling from a plane, bound for death. Our natures keep us from coming to Christ, our ears are blocked to his message, and our eyes are closed to who he is.

Heidelberg Catechism – Questions 2 & 3

Question 2
Q. What do you need to know in order to live and die in the joy of this comfort?
A. First, how great my sins and misery are; second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.

Question 3
Q. From where do you know your sins and misery?
A. From the law of God.

If you ask any person on the street today if they are good people, they will generally measure themselves by some kind of standard. Usually, that standard will be other people: “Well, I’m not as bad as _______, so I’d say that I’m generally a good person.” For them, this kind of thinking provides some comfort – because they aren’t a bad person, they don’t really need to think about what they might have to do to change.

The sad thing is, this same thinking has invaded the church. Because we’ve forgotten the fact that the law brings a curse upon all people (Galatians 3:10), we’ve forgotten that death is what we all deserve.

When we quit lining ourselves up against those “bad” people around us, and instead line ourselves up against those things that the Creator requires of us, then we see our sin. We see our misery. And only then can we understand the comfort which comes through the Lord Jesus; that which we discussed in the first question.

Heidelberg Catechism – Question 1

I’m going to begin through the Heidelberg Catechism, mainly because it will allow me to structure my posts and get on with it. Hopefully it will also grow me and you as I reflect on the truths it contains.

My problem with blogging is working out what to write about. This will help, Lord willing!

If you’d like to read about the Heidelberg Catechism, you can view the Wikipedia page here.

Question 1

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.

This is worth memorising, in my opinion.

I find comfort in many places – I am comforted by the fact that I live in a country like Australia, where our government takes care of its people. I am comforted by a cup of tea and a good book. But is it my genuine desire to be comforted in life and death only by the work of the Trinity in history and in my life?